Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Bathroom Monologue: But there are two hydrogen atoms to each one of oxygen...

"This is like the nature/nurture debate. It's insipid. Hey, your body is made up of organs, made up of cells, made up of molecules, made up of elements. The brain that stores nurtured features is natural. You're all-natural. But you're also all-nurtural. You couldn't speak language without nurture - you were taught words. You couldn't read novels, or write them. Human culture, invention, technology, science - the study of nature is a tradition, a product of the nurture-end. Our species gathering and synthesizing enough information on nature to have an opinion of how nature influences us is a product of nurture. To even have the discussion requires nurture, and to have nurture requires nature. You cannot separate nurture and nature and still have a person. Which one is essential? Both are! It's like arguing whether the hydrogen or oxygen atoms are more important to a water molecule: take either away, and you don't have water anymore. In fact, you may have fission. Ask Hiroshima how fun that is."

2 comments:

  1. Very well said. I don't think I've ever heard it put quite that clearly before, if ever!

    ReplyDelete

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